This little album by Lyle is alright. Some reviews say it's his best since "Road to Ensenada". I like Lyle, but sometimes he's a little to laid-back for me and so it's hard for me to actively listen to him sometimes -- as opposed to passive listening, where it is playing in the background. Now I don't want to reduce him to some kind of "elevator" music, but he does have a certain soothing quality.
At the same time if you listen actively to this album you get a lot of "homing" type of imagery: traveling, rambling and going home. There are several covers along those lines on "Natural Forces", like "Whooping Crane", "Bayou Song" and "Bohemia". The title cut is Lyle's, as well as "Pantry", which actually appears twice, once in a country version and once in a bluegrass version. I think the latter is the best because it fits the cute lyric that implores his wife to be true while he is away by making her love analogous to home-cooking:
Don't cheat on me with cornbread
Don't cheat on me with beans
Don't cheat on me with bacon
Cooked up in collard greens
And don't cheat on me with biscuits
With jelly sweet and blue
Keep it in that place
Where you know you will be true
Keep it in your pantry
Ha. Anyway, the title song, "Natural Forces", actually has a very nice thought to it. He talks about ramblin' and moving as being movtivated by some natural desire (ironically similar to some Zeppelin songs, LOL), and compares it to some of the wars and migrations of history, then centers it at the end with this thought:
And now as i sit here safe at home
With a cold Coors Light and the TV on
All the sacrifice and the death and war
Lord I pray that i'm worth fighting for
...
I'm subject to the natural forces
Home is where my horse is
cds
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